


the few loves I've been allowed

by TolkienGirl



Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [173]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Descent into Madness, Gen, Mithrim, Non-Linear Narrative, POV Second Person, Poor Maglor...he's really going through it, title from a poem by Kim Addonizio
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:34:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22078552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: Maitimo, this is not a song for you.
Relationships: Maedhros | Maitimo & Maglor | Makalaurë, Maglor | Makalaurë & Sons of Fëanor
Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [173]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1300685
Kudos: 25





	the few loves I've been allowed

_“Thus with my lips have I denounced you, while my heart, bleeding within me, called you tender names._ _  
It was love lashed by its own self that spoke. It was pride half slain that fluttered in the dust. It was my hunger for your love that raged from the housetop, while my own love, kneeling in silence, prayed your forgiveness.”_

 _—_ _Kahlil Gibran_

_Maitimo, this is not a song for you. There is no more poetry left in my heart. How many laments must I earn, to buy back my voice? I have no foresight, no capacity greater than regret—_

His eyes are dry. His eyes…no, they are _your_ eyes. You are never permitted to be anything less than a body. How much grief must fill your lungs before you can drown?

_Grief is a thing—earned—_

You do not stir, in the bed that by rights should be _his_ bed, covered as it is with the blankets he carried for both of you. In the mountains, you wept into your hands at night, hating that your family’s quest had ruined your harp by pressing onward, onward, onward…

…and though it was _he_ who thrust you against the rock-wall, who told you to cease, he was also the one who lay close enough to reach out and grip your shoulder. He worked his long fingers into your knotted hair, his touch gentle amid all your tangles, and he whispered your name.

This is why you cannot sleep now, and will never properly sleep again, haunted as you are by the shapes of your songs and the shape of his voice.

 _Macalaure_.

If you tell the memories to leave you, the rest will hear.

In the dark, with your sore eyes ( _he lives_ ), you have to imagine that they are all watching you, sharper-sighted, hating you for the weak creature you are without him ( _he lives_ ).

There in the mountains, on hard ground, gnawing at your salt-stained fist, you…

_Macalaure, you can’t, you mustn’t, I promise we’ll—_

( _Maitimo lives._ )

So. You in the dark, you with the eyes, you with the brothers—still, so many brothers even when they are few—who hate you. Have you ever loved them? Were you ever more than an ugly paper shell, gilded with talent and his praise? Even when he failed himself he turned to you, even when he hated himself he loved you, even when he—

You had to hold a piece of him in your hands, red-wisped, and damn him.

_Maitimo, this is not a song for you._

You were already damned, but he’d never let you know that. He held back your own knowledge from you, just as he held back your grief. Without him, the flood rises.

Unearned, it cannot drown you. It cannot drown you, yet. You lie and you lie and you _lie_ , and you do not think that you will ever be able to die.

You cannot die, because you killed him—

And even so, he lives.


End file.
